Many companies are adopting the use of networks for sharing information. The Internet and Intranets are examples of such networks. This information may be shared within a company, university, local group, or to users around the world, etc.
As the information shared becomes richer in content, such as streaming video, etc., it may place more demands on servers, which may lower available bandwidth, and slow down access to the information on, for example, a Wide Area Network (WAN), etc. One approach to improving performance is to “widen the pipe” or bandwidth that the WAN may handle. This may be a very expensive approach particularly where peak or spikes in traffic may be a limiting factor. This may present a problem.